For sale, your location: Revelations about data sales

Recent revelations about companies that traffic in personal location data — and how easy that information can be acquired for a few hundred dollars — have led to renewed calls for the regulation of the collection and sale of such data.

A mobile data industry executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect confidential business relationships, told NBC News that while many cellphone companies sell real-time geolocation data to preferred partners, there are "dozens or more" of such companies buying data from the cellphone companies. Those companies in turn may repackage and resell it to "over a hundred" other companies.